Assessment of Assistant Principal in the Context of Henry Mintzberg's Views on The Administrator's Features

Abstract

Administrators are needed to administrate schools for their purposes, like other organizations. One of those who assume this task in schools is the assistant principals. The purpose of this study is to reveal how the assistant principals made sense of their place and characteristics in the school in the context of H. Mintzberg's views on the administrator's features. Qualitative research methods and phenomenological patterns were used in this study. The participants of the research were 19 assistant principals working in Konya. The data were obtained from the interviews, observations, and documents. Descriptive and content analysis methods were used for data analysis. In this regard, two themes emerged: the meaning of the assistant principal for the school and the characteristics of the assistant principal. According to the research results, both formal and informal meanings are attributed to the assistant principal. In parallel, the assistant principal has different and many features, especially bureaucracy and communication. In this study, Henry Mintzberg's opinions about the administrators were compared with the interview data obtained, and it was observed that the views generally overlapped with the data obtained. In the last part of this study, suggestions for researchers and practitioners were included.